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CMU, Pitt and Black Colleges Collaborate to Promote Robotics and Computer Sciences
Writer: Deb Smit
Source: David Touretzky, CMU
CMU, University of Pittsburgh and five other research universities have joined forces with eight historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in a collaborative project to promote robotics and computer science education for African-American students.

The Advancing Robotics Technology for Societal Impact (ARTSI) Alliance grew out of an earlier successful collaboration between Andrew Williams, associate professor at Spelman College, and David Touretzky, research professor of computer science at CMU, which established robotics education labs at Spelman and three other HBCUs.

The alliance is funded by a $2 M grant from the National Science Foundation. The program will provide research quality robots to some of the schools for the first time, as well as develop programs, research workshops, conferences and a web portal to encourage African American students at both the K-12 and college level to pursue careers in the sciences.

“ARTSI is an incredibly exciting project,” explains Touretzky. “It's not just about teaching robotics to a small number of HBCU students; it's about demonstrating to the entire nation that there is an African American computer science community doing fun and interesting work with robots and inviting more African Americans to join them.”

ARTSI Goals:

• Increase the number of African Americans who study computer science and robotics in college, and encourage them to pursue advanced training in graduate school.
• Increase the number of HBCU faculty who educate students in robotics and involve students in robotics research.
• Recruit K-12 and HBCU students to pursue computer science and robotics education.
• BROADER IMPACTS of the ARTSI Alliance
• Promoting role modeling and mentoring for HBCU faculty and students in robotics education and research.
• Creating a nation-wide resource and learning community of African Americans involved in robotics, and increasing public awareness of their work.
• Enlarging the audience of students who find robotics computing careers attractive.

African-Americans now account for just 4.8 percent of almost two million U.S. computer and information scientists, a job category that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects will be among the fastest growing occupations over the next decade.